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Chief Red Wing Day Symbolically Replaces Columbus Day in Minnesota

ICTMN Staff

4/30/14

Another Minnesota city is moving toward recognition of this country’s first peoples. The Red Wing City Council voted on Monday, April 28 to celebrate Chief Red Wing Day instead of Columbus Day on the second Monday in October.

Even though the move to celebrate Chief Red Wing to promote education about the area’s earliest inhabitants is a symbolic one since the city doesn’t have the authority to change a federal holiday, it’s an important one.

“There are a lot of things we do that are symbolic,” Council president Lisa Bayley told TwinCities.com. “And we do it because symbols matter.”

“It’s an important symbol and an important move to show how we feel about our (Native American) community members,” she told the Post Bulletin.

Red Wing is named after a chief who was called Hupahuduta, which means “a swan’s wing dyed in red.” A U.S. Army officer suggested the name of Red Wing after the chief.

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